Okay so I bought the Chessie System geep and it didn't look right. It seemed ...lacking. I wasn't sure why so in looking at a book with a lot of pictures of the Chessie back in the day it hit me! There was not a caboose on the end of my train. I felt like that was what I really needed to round out the short train I have. So I head down to the lhs and scrounge through the piles with no luck. When the owner asked what I was looking for, I told him and he said he would order it for me. I thought "hey this is cool, shouldn't be expensive either." Turns out it was $15 bucks for a Bachmann Chessie caboose... While I have enjoyed their geep, their caboose is, well, crap... Seriously few details, sits up way to high, no running boards, no grab irons, no window glass, no nothing. And for the same price I can get a beautiful Athearn model. So I set to work making something out of not much. First, I removed the trucks and wheels.
That is all I removed. This is as simple as it comes. I bent the smokestack accidentally when it fell from my hands during the removal process.
Here is the underside. Pretty typical. I kept this part in case I needed parts later.
Next I dissassembled the major components. Here we see the body, cab, underbody, and weights. Typically this sort of disassembly isnt necessary. However, I wanted to paint the interior of the caboose black. This makes it look more prototypical since it cancels out a lot of the light that shines in those windows. I brush painted some Polly Scale Engine Black on the interior. Spraying would have gotten overspray out of the windows onto the body.
The result is seen above.
The above photo shows the exterior after a weatherwash and body work. I wanted to smooth the bottom of the body so it would work with the next major part of the project. I also melted teh overhanging roof parts to lend credibility to the "wreck" look. The weather wash is a simple weathering technique that is commonly used. It involves mixing a few drops of india ink (or in this case, a whole lot) into a bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol. Then you drag a brush load of it over the surface you want to weather and the wash does the work. The alcohol quickly goes into the smalled nook and cranny of the surface and when it evaporates it leaves behind the ink which highlights the smallest parts. A fun technique with a lot of potential. Especially since it can be as light or dark as desired.
After the first two washes, I trimmed some painters tape into a thin strip and layed it where the walkway should have been, if this model would have had one... Then I drybrushed some model master rust onto the roof to simulate use and abuse. Drybrushing is done by putting a small amount of paint onto the brush, wiping all but a trace amount off on a paper towel, and then lightly brushing the surfaces. Here I went pretty heavily.
The above photo is the during of drybrushing.
And here is the after photo. Worked pretty well in my honest opinion :)
I did a little weathering with powdered pastels to even the overall look out. I also cut into the body to make wreck cracks. Once that was done, I sealed the powders and washes on with a coat of Testors Dullcoat. I dullcoated before the windows were added because for some reason it "frosts" the windows. I found this out the hard way... Another hard lesson is to not dullcoat until you are very sure you are done. If you apply a wash with rubbing alcohol over dullcoat it turns all of the dullcoat white. Again, hard lesson...
Now for the next part. I needed a material to make windows, and when I found clear styrene sheet, I almost passed out at the sight of the price tag. There was no way I could use that stuff and call this a blog for modeling cheaply... When I got home that evening, I decided to open my new racquet ball goggles. As I was struggling with the bad word blister packaging, it hit! Use that stuff! There is always a lot of it and normally it just gets thrown out. So I cut it into the right sizes and it worked beautifully! I was even able to use and Xacto blade to carve cracks and holes into the windows.
Then came the next major part.
I wanted a simple flat car for this thing to be towed on. So again I went to the lhs and found a perfect fit. A Walthers Trainline 50' flat car.
I won't lie to ya, I got this from Model Railroader magazine. The article showed how to weather a deck and it worked perfectly. I painted the deck reefer gray and then a few individual boards with the various colors above. Then I got all over it with a weather wash of heavy concentration and then powder pasteled the snot out of this thing, followed by a quick dullcoating. It was a quick job and resulted in a great looking flat car that has been around the block a few times. Then came mounting the caboose. To keep it in place on the prototype, support bars were placed in the points along the side of the flat car and it was strapped down. To do this I trimmed some toothpick bodies to size and then test fit. When I was happy with the results I stained them with the weather wash.
After they dried, I put them into the load lugs, and settled the caboose into its new home. Then I detailed the caboose's wheels and axels and built a small carriage for them. Then I was finished! Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the long awaited final product!
Ain't it a beauty? I am so glad at how it turned out. Even the guys at the club who have all been doing this stuff for years approved of it. So anyway, this has taken a good 2 hours to write so I am now going to go take a nap then play with trains some more! Good luck in your endevours everyone!
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